


Sooner Than You Think

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: Arkham - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Jewish Martha Wayne, M/M, POV Bruce Wayne, Sexual Tension, Suicidal Thoughts, sitting shiva
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 06:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11480373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: After the events of Arkham City, Bruce doesn't know what to do with himself, and secludes himself in the Batcave.





	Sooner Than You Think

“Master Bruce?” Alfred’s voice echoes in the quiet of the Batcave, bouncing off the walls and the high ceilings, hitting hard against the rough stone. Down one of the shafts over the water, a few bats shuffle around: no doubt the thought passes through Alfred’s mind that the population is getting a little high, and that he should shoo some of the bats out, lest guano become an issue for the equipment.

There is no response. Bruce doubts he expected one.

He hears the soft sigh ( _because that echoes too, of course it does_ ), and then he hears Alfred’s footsteps down the stone corridor, and the electric hum of the lift in action.

Bruce sits on the floor of his training room, an untouched plate of cheese and crackers on the floor to his left, with an untouched glass of water beside it. The grate metal of the floor digs into the thin material of his pants, imprinting red and white on his ass and his thighs in uncomfortable, digging pain and irritation, but Bruce doesn’t stand or think of moving to a chair.

His back rests against the training console, one knee drawn up in front of him, his other leg stretched out, and Bruce stares into space, his jaw set.

Alfred doesn’t understand. Alfred couldn’t, can’t understand, because Bruce doesn’t get it either.

He remembers his mother, when her father died: he recalls the funeral blacks and the torn ribbons she’d worn in her hair and on the lapel of her coat, remembers the cloths hanging over the mirrors in his grandmother’s house (but she’d died herself, not even a year afterwards, hadn’t she?), but most of all, Bruce remembers how his mother had sat with her mother, in silence, on the sofa they’d taken the cushions off for days afterwards.

He’d never seen her like that before, with her hair messily tied with one of those ragged ribbons, with no make-up on her face, no shoes, with none of her proper posture, as he’d known her for so long.

The actual image of her is a blur, now, because it was so long ago – _how old could he have been? Six?_ – but he remembers how he’d felt seeing her that way, and how his father had quietly pushed him to leave her be, for a while.

“What’s she doing, Father?”

“She’s sitting shiva for her dad, Bruce.” He and his father had taken a walk in the grounds, walking side by side: his father’s voice had been quiet. “For a week, your grandma and your mother are going to be sitting low, as they grieve for your grandfather. It’s complicated, but you’ll understand it better, when you’re older. Do you have any questions?”

Bruce had dozens of questions. He doesn’t remember, now, what any of them were.

 _“What’s wrong, Batsy? You’re not sad, are ya_?” Bruce can almost see him, standing there, his hands on his hips, his elbows standing out from his body at a comical angle, his head tilted to the side and that huge, ripped grin on his face. _“Oh, this is funny. This is really- you know, this is hilarious. The big bat, brought down, all because’a little old me!”_

Bruce’s mouth is dry, but he doesn’t want to drink the water: it’s been sitting there on the grating beside him for two days now.

The Joker takes a few steps forwards, doing a stupid walk with his feet wide in a parody of the Penguin, and he leans in so close that Bruce can feel his breath hot over the top of his forehead, smell gunpowder and flowers and a sickly sweet undertow clinging to the Joker’s suit the same way his pinstripes do, as if they’re woven right into the cloth.

“ _Doesn’t make much sense, does it, Batsy?_ ” The Joker speaks in a whisper that rings in Bruce’s ears, and Bruce closes his eyes, except that just makes the vision of The Joker _clearer_ , because he’s standing alone in a sea of blackness, without the Batcave behind him to be a distraction. “ _Ya don’t even go to temple, and you’re sitting low for **me**? I gotta say, baby – I’m flattered! What am I to you then, huh? Mommy? Daddy? Bro?”_

The Joker’s fingers are on Bruce’s cheeks, now, cupping the strong lines of his jaw with the pads of his fingers drawing over the messy stubble growing on his cheeks, and Bruce can feel his heartrate quicken, his breathing speeding up a little, as the Joker leans in towards him, so he can feel the space between them close. And the Joker’s nose is nearly brushing against Bruce’s, now, and is he going to kiss him?

If he was Batman, he’d punch right, knee up, get a blow in to Joker’s solar plexus and then throw him down on his back.

But he isn’t Batman. He’s Bruce Wayne.

And Bruce Wayne is sitting alone in an empty cave, pretending to himself that a dead man is threatening to kiss him.

He opens his eyes, and looks at the emptiness surrounding him, at the rough walls of the cave, at the mannequins with their faceless stares and the stacked crates of Batarangs and gadgets to the side of the room.

“ _Seems to me like I must be your lover, Batty-Boy, if you’re sitting shiva for me.”_   The Joker whispers in his ear, and Bruce feels himself let out an unwilling sound that’s too hoarse to be a sob. What does he do now? Why had it hit him so hard, seeing the Joker dead on the ground in front of him, feeling the sickly unweight of him in his arms? Hearing Harley Quinn’s ragged cries and tears, and feeling like he should be joining her? “ _Shame there’s no sex allowed in the grieving time, huh_?”

“Stop it,” Bruce hears himself whisper. It echoes off the walls, just like Alfred’s voice had done – there’s no echo in Joker’s voice, because Joker’s voice isn’t really there. Bruce is going crazy.

“ _Ain’t it funny, Batsy?”_ Joker’s tongue on the shell of Bruce’s ear, Joker’s mouth leaving a red wax trail against Bruce’s temple, Joker’s body, frail and limp in Bruce’s arms, and the ringing silence of Gotham City in the wake of his death.

Bruce wishes he was dead.

“ _Oh, go on! Do it, do it, **do it**!”  _ Joker clapping his hands together, Joker jumping up in the air, Joker’s skin with holes in it and wrinkled like something already dead, Joker’s eyes glassy and bloodshot, Joker **_dead_**. “ _Lots’a ways you could do it, honey, sweetie, babes. You could use a Bat-noose or a Bat-razor or Bat-pills! Would it be suicide or vespertilicide?”_ Joker cackles like a Halloween decoration, and then the imagining is gone, and silence reigns.

Alfred can’t understand.

Bruce turns his head to the side, looks at the stale cheese and the soft crackers, arranged neatly on the plate.

He needs to go out.

“ _That’s it, Batsy_. _Go see Harley_. _She’ll be so glad to see you…”_   The Joker giggles, and Bruce sighs, drops his head back against the console behind him a little too hard, so that the pain rings in his skull for a second or two. “ _We’ll be together again sooner than you think, Batman. Sooner than you think.”_

Bruce pulls himself to stand, and dizziness hits him in a nauseous wave, making him grab onto the console to keep his balance as he closes his eyes and tries to stop the room from spinning.

 _Sooner than you think_ , he thinks to himself, and he takes the walkway across the cave, towards his suit.


End file.
